Someone had to keep an eye on him.May peered around the door of his partner’s office and watched Bryant knocking the contents of his pipe into the brainpan of the Tibetan skull on his desk. Half of the bookcase had been emptied, and two immense stacks towered on either side of the desk, framing the old man with playscripts, manuals, comics, art books, histories, encyclopedias, miscellanies and a number of surprisingly sleazy pulp thrillers.‘I knew it,’ May said with a sigh. ‘You’ve been thinking again.’Bryant widened his watery blue eyes in surprise. ‘Ah, there you are,’ he said. ‘Now that you’ve finished holding your little chats, we can talk. Do come in, and shut the door behind you.’‘None of your deranged diversions this time, okay?’ May warned, settling himself in another overstuffed armchair that had appeared in the room. Bryant seemed to accumulate furniture wherever he went. ‘It’s a fairly straightforward case, despite the circumstances of the death.’‘What do you mean?’May pointed to the nearest stack of books on the desk.
